Rugby World Cup 2011: England hooker Dylan Hartley has reasons for eyeing final showdown with All Blacks

Hooker Dylan Hartley was once a handy badminton player back in New Zealand,
but it is as an England rugby international that he has made his mark as
Beth Ashton - sister of flying winger and team-mate Chris - finds out

Picture the scene. It is the night of Oct 23 and England and New Zealand are striding on to Eden Park’s pristine turf for the World Cup final.

In the stands, 60,000 Aucklanders are bellowing their contempt for the visitors – and for one in particular: Dylan Hartley, a New Zealander by birth but now clad in England white, soaking up the opprobrium.

Can he imagine the whirl of emotions? The man himself simply shrugs and smiles. “It feels a long way away. Our first game against Argentina is going to be tough enough. You can never afford to look too far ahead.”

If Hartley does feel tugged in different directions by his heritage, at least he is not alone. Martin Johnson’s World Cup 30 contains seven players who were born outside England.

Debates will rumble on about eligibility but there should be no questioning Hartley’s commitment to the England cause, even if his route to these shores was unexpected.

You might imagine Hartley’s story being one of Premiership scouts cruising neglected corners of New Zealand’s rugby hinterland, alighting upon Hartley and immediately packing him on a plane to England. This, however, could not be further from the truth.

“It wasn’t a rugby decision to come over here!” Hartley says, somewhat surprised at the suggestion. “I was at school not really doing anything and I saw in the school newsletter for school exchanges in the UK and America so I decided to go for it.

“The exchange programmes were quite expensive though, so I took a bit of an unofficial route. It was just convenient that I had an uncle living just outside Tunbridge Wells and cousins my own age. Actually it was an academic decision.”

The 16 year-old wanted a change of scene and, luckily for him, grassroots rugby in England allowed him to improve his game sufficiently for him to be selected for England Under-18s within a year.

“When I was a kid in New Zealand all my mates played rugby and it was the national sport so that was just the ball I picked up. I played other sports too but rugby was the fashionable one. You kind of just tag along with whatever your mates are doing, so that’s just what I did.

“I used to play badminton with my mum but that wasn’t very fashionable – I even played at county level. I’ve probably got more trophies for badminton than I have for rugby.

“I came over to England and the first day I was here my uncle took me out to the local rugby club, paid my membership fees and I joined the school rugby team which was in tandem with the local club. So I started at the bottom here, really.”

His memories of previous World Cups are sparse, admitting that even in a country where rugby is difficult to avoid, he didn’t watch much. There is one man, though, that stuck in his mind.

“I can only remember the 1995 World Cup, I was 10 years old and I don’t think I knew many New Zealand players – the only name I knew was Jonah Lomu. Every schoolboy knew him because he’d just burst onto the scene in that World Cup and he was something different.

"He was amazing and everyone wanted to be him. So that’s all I remember really, just wanting to be like Jonah.”

For Hartley, returning to New Zealand will be an opportunity to spend time with his family but his English heritage means that he doesn’t need to be too concerned about whether his family will show allegiance to their homeland.

“My grandparents are passionately English, my grandmother speaks a bit like the queen and my mother’s a firm English supporter.

"My dad’s just a typical Kiwi bloke so I think there’s a bit of a split down the household when England and New Zealand play each other but I think they’re just happy to see me playing and doing well.”

Though Hartley and the England faithful may not dare to dream about the possibilities that lie ahead, he will be hoping that he makes enough of a mark for school boys everywhere – even the ones that would rather play rugby than watch – to remember his name.